Colin Donnelly is a Fellow and Tutor in Theology at Keble as well as Associate Professor in Reformation & Early Modern Christianities in the Faculty of Theology & Religion. He joined Keble College in 2025, having previously worked at Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Limerick.
He completed both a BA and an MPhil in Theology at Keble, followed by a PhD in Theology at Durham University. His research has focused on the theology of the early English Reformation, the role of both English and German universities in the dramatic changes of the early modern period, and the history of the soul and afterlife. His first book, Cambridge Evangelicals and the English Reformation, c. 1520-1540, is currently under contract at Boydell & Brewer and traces the emergence of key new theologies of grace, justification, and authority (religious and political alike) at Cambridge University in the 1520s and 30s, and their dramatic impact on the wider course of the English Reformation.
He is also in the early stages of a new project on the history of radical and deviant visions of the soul and afterlife from 1500 to 1700, and the ways those ideas laid the groundwork for new religious, philosophical, and political ideas that continue to shape our world today.